A few days ago the Chairman of the Men’s National Ranking Committee, Ray Crosta, announced changes to the way the APTA ranks and seeds players throughout the year. Why are there changes now can be explained for a main reason: the game is evolving and the APTA recognizes that.

After several complaints about the way they seeded specific tournaments, the APTA found itself on the hot seat. Crosta makes it very clear: “There was a need to be transparent with our rankings/seedings and we feel it is best to communicate our new system to all so there will be no more confusion as to how we arrive at our results.” The new seeding process will be used without exception in the coming 2011/12 season.

What are the main changes?

The Men’s Doubles National Ranking will be published online five (5) times a year on a preset schedule (although rankings are updated after every tourney).

Seeding and Placement of Seeds (Listed and Non-listed) will follow the guidelines as follows:

In all cases, a 3 NRT event average will be used for determining the order of the seeds and placements.

In cases where a team does not have a 3 NRT average, 75% of the two individual’s next best results will be averaged and used to make up the necessary number of events to get to the 3 NRT average. This can be for 1, 2 or 3 NRT events if necessary. If an individual does not have 3 NRT results, those events missing will be counted as zero for the calculation.

To receive an official end of the year ranking, a team must play 3 events together with one of those events outside of their home region. Nationals is considered an out of region event no matter its location and is the only NRT with this designation.

The strength of the tournaments will still be at the Ranking Committee’s discretion. How do they do it? Chairman Crosta explains it in his own words: “We will compare a tourney to the one the year before and also to other tourneys played within the last 12 months to try to get an accurate rating.” Communicating and explaining ranking and seeding procedures are now clear and definitely a step in the right direction. For a complete disclosure of the changes simply click here.